New Moulton vehicle to list before Christmas

Better Capital, the new venture from Jon Moulton, is planning to raise over £100m for turnaround investments and is due to list in London before Christmas, Moulton said.

Following an acrimonious split with former colleagues at Alchemy Partners in September, the private-equity industry veteran has been sounding out investors and hiring staff for a new investment vehicle.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the SuperInvestor conference in Paris, Moulton said Better Capital had approached a few traditional private equity investors, as well as equities investors and wealth managers, and had received sufficient interest to push ahead with the plans.

“It’s really just simply to take full advantage of the turnaround opportunities coming out of the economic situation we are in,” said Moulton.

The new firm will target struggling companies in Great Britain and Ireland and has funding in place, some of it Moulton’s own money, to make investments straight away.

“I will certainly be putting a material amount of money in,” said Moulton, though he declined to comment on the size of his own investment to the fund.

The new vehicle had been planned while Moulton was still at Alchemy but reluctance from colleagues was the principal reason behind his departure from the firm, Moulton said.